Fox's Bid For Time Warner Sends Media Stocks Soaring

Major media stocks have taken off today -- on the news of 21st Century Fox's surprised $80 billion cash and stock bid to buy Time Warner.

Early morning trading had Time Warner’s
skyrocketing 18% to $83.69. Reports say the Fox offer would amount to a sale price of $85 a share.

Viacom was also a big mover up 5.3% to $89.10; Discovery rose 5.7% to $83.00; CBS was up
2.4% to $60.91; and Sinclair Broadcast Group gained 3.5% to $83.68.

Reports are that Time Warner rejected Fox’s bid. According to The New York Times, the Fox bid had been a
long time in the making.

The combined companies would have some $70 billion in revenue. As part of the deal, Fox would look to sell off Time Warner’s prized CNN news channel to avoid
anti-trust regulations that would probably arise with Fox owning two cable network news services.

Time Warner and Fox would merge to major movie studios, a number of advertising supported
cable networks, as well premium cable groupHBO.

Analysts speculate Time Warner became a more vulnerable target when it recently spun off its print operations. A few years ago, Time Warner
did the same with its cable operations — a company that looks to be bought out by Comcast Corp. should it clear governmental agencies.

21st Century Fox, controlled by Rupert Murdoch
and his family, was also recently spun off from its print operations, now under the News Corp. banner.